As I’ve read articles, blog posts and especially since I’ve watched political commentary on television about empathy, I’ve noticed what appears to be misconceptions about the nature of  empathy. For the sake of clarity, I’ve listed some of these below and offered my own take on these perceptions based on my actual experience of working with nonviolent communication and empathy for almost 20 years.

Empathy is not the same as Love
I’ve heard many understandings of love, let’s take one. If love is the giving from our heart without expectation, empathy is a quality of being fully present to another person, focusing on the other, which often opens our hearts to such giving.

Empathy is not Sympathy
Sympathy entails a quality of support that requires a degree of agreement with the other person’s views. Empathy means we fully let in what the other expresses, without agreeing or disagreeing with the content of the expression. Empathy implies seeking to understand, not seeking agreement or disagreement.

Empathy is not “Niceness”
If by being nice, we mean polite “proper” behavior, empathy can often be the antithesis of “niceness”. Empathy calls for our authenticity, that we acknowledge what is often kept hidden by the polite, nice world, bringing those uncomfortable issues to the forefront.

Empathy is not Passivity
Being empathetic does not mean I become a limp noodle without my own needs and expression, or indifferent to conflict. Empathy is an active process of presence, listening, observing and internally opening to someone other than our selves.

In fact, empathy moves us to the center of conflict. Human beings disagree, misunderstand, react and so forth. Our world is full of examples of this. Empathy works directly with this noble truth. By deeply understanding another, we can reduce misunderstanding, see clearly how our views differ, and build trust through the truly courageous act of letting another human being fully into our awareness and maybe even our hearts. It doesn’t mean we agree or disagree, sympathize, lie down, or be polite; we simply give another the gift of our presence and understanding.

Empathy isn’t naïve
Empathy is exactly the opposite of naiveté, empathy ends naiveté. How? Because when we fully receive another person, seek to understand, the maximum amount of information is brought into the open. This doesn’t mean everything is rosy and now we’ll hold hands and sing Kumbaya together. It means we are now aware of another’s needs giving us the maximum opportunity to act on accurate information and the deepest level of trust. What we have done is relieve ourselves of the naïve idea that some problems are unsolvable, that violent disagreement is absolutely inevitable.

Empathy isn’t superfluous or impractical
The great contemporary philosopher Ken Wilber commented that communication between human beings is nothing short of miraculous, that it’s amazing we understand each other at all. The practice of empathy greatly magnifies the odds of true understanding. Just listen to the rhetoric from both sides of the congressional aisle or tune into a broadcast of Fox News and MSNBC and notice how severely polarized our country’s political stances have become today. What if we could create a bridge between these poles, would that not be quite substantial? Empathy says, “yes we can”.

Summary
Empathy is the meeting ground where the needs of all are acknowledged and understood.  Though empathy may seem like it is a selfless act, it is not. When I deeply understand another, it has been my experience time and again, that having been heard, the other person is now far more open to hearing and understanding me. Empathy gives me a much greater chance of bringing my own needs and values to actuality.